Voters, NC board: Cawthorn candidate challenge should remain
Earlier DU thread: NC State Board of Elections says it can disqualify Madison Cawthorn if he "engaged in insurrection"
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Source: Associated Press
Voters, NC board: Cawthorn candidate challenge should remain
By GARY D. ROBERTSON
February 8, 2022
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A formal effort to evaluate whether North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn should be disqualified as a candidate because of his involvement in the January 2021 rally that preceded the U.S. Capitol riot should be allowed to continue, voters and election officials told a federal judge.
Nearly a dozen North Carolina voters had filed a candidate challenge last month against the first-term Republican. On Monday, attorneys for the voters and the State Board of Elections turned in court filings arguing that Cawthorn’s motion to cancel the challenge process be rejected.
The candidate challenge says Cawthorn fails to comply with the portion of a post-Civil War amendment to the Constitution pertaining to insurrections. Cawthorn’s speech at the rally supporting then-President Donald Trump, his other comments and information in published reports provide a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that he helped facilitate the insurrection, the challenge reads.
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Cawthorn’s attorneys wrote in a Jan. 31 lawsuit that the state’s candidate challenge process violates constitutional rights and should be struck down. A provision in the 14th Amendment that prohibits members of Congress who have engaged in an insurrection to continue serving is not applicable, his lawyers argued. They want U.S. District Judge Richard Myers to issue a preliminary injunction. A hearing date hadn’t been set as of Tuesday.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/elections-lawsuits-north-carolina-constitutions-congress-98cb70ead7f5421b1c318ff41fadd1bc